CinemaCon 2026

[Mike Blakesley]

I would rate the studio presentations in this order:

Disney
Universal
Warner Bros.
Amazon/MGM
Paramount
Sony

The all had their cool moments. Universal gets high marks for finally bringing Steven Spielberg to the big show. Paramount had Tom Cruise sitting on top of their water tower, but Warner Bros. had the actual Tom Cruise. Disney had Tom Hanks and Tim Allen. Amazon/MGM had a surprisingly good slate, although they stopped short of giving any details about the next Bond movie. I would tie theirs with Universal's, except Universal had Spielberg so that puts them over.

Overall the various slates looked pretty good. There's a lot of good stuff coming up. It's not all superheroes anymore, which is encouraging. There are too many horror movies. They say those are one format that's guaranteed successful in theaters, which I guess is true...for one weekend. After the fanboys see it, it's gone. Yet another indicator that long play-times should be a thing of the past.

I didn't get to spend as much time in the trade show as I would have liked. No clear contender in the "hot new product" category, except the aforementioned LED screens. There seemed to be fewer seating companies than usual, but that might have been my imagination. RealD had a big presence, pushing 3-D, and James Cameron gave an impassioned pro-3D speech, in support of his new Billie Eilish concert film, but it's hard to imagine a big 3-D resurgence just for that.

[Frank Cox]

There are too many horror movies. They say those are one format that's guaranteed successful in theaters

Tain't necessarily so. The Bride, The Mummy, Megan 2, Night Swim, etc.

[Steve Guttag]

Mike, how did you like the trade show being cut down? They eliminated Thursday morning entirely as well as made Wednesday shorter. In some ways, it felt rushed and in some ways it felt right. I also saw a situation where, with the shorter days, some vendors did not show (not worth the cost/hassle to make/deliver/tear-down a booth for just two 6-hour days. Plus, part of each day is going to be in conflict with other parts of the show/screenings, so you lose foot traffic during those.

[David Ferguson]

I'm very grateful to Sean and Thomas for their passion in bringing film-sound into the 21st century, and thankful for others such as David Ferguson (who is an expert on film timecode)

Thanks for the shout out, it's been fun to provide some knowledge to help with this.

When talking about a dual-inventory system for DTS players (lossless and apt-x100), you have to remember that there is already a (sort of) dual inventory: CDs and USB/DVDs. I've seen quite a few times now a new release only be given USB sticks with the DTS files - or some studios burning DVD-Rs to hold all the files (mostly for repertory titles where I assume the discs were lost), and neither of these will play in the DTS-6, DTS-6D or DTS-6AD players. Of course, the fix is quite simple, to burn your own CD-R of them (and ideally include those in the box when you return the print!) but it does show that there are already two ways of distributing DTS files. And for those that say that XD10s/20s are more common, they are, but I know quite a few over here in the UK and Europe still using the older players, which - if they were updated to use the more modern drives - are really very reliable.

For USB and DVD releases, you can just stick the uncompressed audio on the same disc, there should be enough space, and the old players will read the old files, any new players can read the new ones. For CD, well you don't need to bother, you just need to makes sure there are CD-ROMs of the original apt-x100 files to ensure that they are compatible with all other DTS players.

[Marcel Birgelen]

For USB and DVD releases, you can just stick the uncompressed audio on the same disc, there should be enough space, and the old players will read the old files, any new players can read the new ones. For CD, well you don't need to bother, you just need to makes sure there are CD-ROMs of the original apt-x100 files to ensure that they are compatible with all other DTS players.

Why not simply use DCPs for this? Is there anything in the specs of a DCP that it MUST contain a picture element? And if so, it could still contain a simple still image.

We know how to distribute DCPs, DCPs can be handled by TMSes, distributed via existing digital transfer systems and are already proven as a vessel for IAB sound.

The vast majority of the LED signs we sell are made by Daktronics. The LEDs and other components are much better quality than the crap from fly by night Chinese companies. Daktronics boards are more dependable. And if/when we need to do service work on the boards we can still get replacement parts several years down the road.

Yeah, much of it used to be shit and still is shit. But the Chinese market is VERY diverse, there are parties that essentially only try to rip you off, but there are also some genuine good suppliers in there. Keep in mind that most of the electronics we use nowadays finds its origin there, if it's not in its entirety, then at least for a few components. To get the grips on the Chinese OEM market you need someone who knows the market. Also, the more serious suppliers often have local offices and representation that you can turn to for support. Still, they're competing both hard on price and innovation. HeyLED which is what Strong is showing, also is a Chinese integrator, but they're apparently fully DCI certified.

This sounds a bit like what the Holoplot company has done with the beam forming audio at Sphere in Las Vegas.

If you have thousands of mini-speakers, then you can do both beam forming and wavefront synthesis. Actually, you really must use the system this way, in order to create a sound pressure wave sufficiently large to cover the entire theater. The problem though is, you don't have a closed envelope, like the sphere, unless you're going to install those arrays all across the room.

Having heard the Holoplot system a few times now, I must say it's interesting but I'm not sure if it's really worth the price. I haven't really heard wavefront synthesis being used like Disney has used in a few of their attractions.

[Mike Blakesley]

Mike, how did you like the trade show being cut down? They eliminated Thursday morning entirely as well as made Wednesday shorter.

It didn't make much difference. In the past we have usually only gone to the show two days anyway. This year we weren't really in the market for anything -- mostly looking for new concession ideas -- so we didn't hang out at the equipment areas much. Plus Lynn recently had a knee replacement so she quickly got tired of walking around. So our trade show time was a little less than normal.

It seemed like they had a couple more "talking heads" panels this year than in the past. Those can be interesting depending on who's talking, but a lot of it is (understandably) geared to chain theaters and PLF screens, so my eyes tend to glaze over after a while in some of those presentations.

The biggest waste of time is the ITOC "meeting" on the first day. But it's not a meeting, it's just another panel discussion. Hearing Jason Reitman talk about his one-screen theater in L.A. was kind of interesting, but they try to make him come off as "one of us" which is ridiculous. His theater is getting a $25 million dollar renovation, thanks to his 19 director co-owners. It's great that a single screen theatre has the "attention" of the Hollywood power elite, but I hardly think that theater will have to live under the same outdated restrictions that us regular single screens do.